Our Vision

Back in December 2018 we published our strategic plan: Making Letchworth a great place for everyone. This plan was to take us to the end of 2021 focusing on three key objectives. 

Then in March 2020, life as we knew it changed overnight due to COVID-19.  Around the world, individuals and businesses were plunged into hardship and uncertainty.  The Foundation was not exception.  Within four months we had to close many of our venues and services resulting in job losses. 

The revised Business Plan continues to focus on improving life chances, making Letchworth a great place to live and driving investment in the town, but now a fourth objective has been introduced – initiating a financial recovery roadmap in response to COVID-19s impact. These are our updated objectives:

  • Initiate a financial recovery roadmap

  • Improve life chances for people in Letchworth 

  • Ensure Letchworth continues to be a great
    place to live

  • Increase investment in Letchworth

Initiate financial recovery roadmap

  • Support town centre recovery by working with the BID to encourage more people to shop local

  • Explore opportunities to adapt the spaces we own to create co-working spaces for start-ups, freelancers and the creative community

  • Collaborate with the School for Social Entrepreneurs to support local entrepreneurs to scale up their businesses and explore opportunities to encourage enterprise development

  • Work with partners to scope a town-wide loyalty scheme to encourage people from Letchworth and the surrounding area to shop, eat out and come to our cinema, gallery and museum

  • Build capacity and income through external funding and work with partners to identify collaborative opportunities to attract funding into Letchworth

  • Make our venues more commercially successful

Improve life chances

  • Continue to address poverty and inclusion through our Families and Young Peoples Project

  • Adapt our grants programme to support emerging areas of need, including financial and digital inclusion, and continue to provide grant funding to organisations impacted by COVID-19

  • Pilot a neighbourhood social action project

  • Commission projects and activities to help reduce poverty and hardship

  • Support young unemployed people by taking part in the government’s Kickstart scheme

Make Letchworth a great place to live

  • Launch a Great Outdoors campaign to encourage people to use the Garden City Greenway and other green open spaces in Letchworth

  • Create a cultural learning programme for schools using the story of the Garden City to engage children in the story of their hometown and build civic pride

  • Showcase local talent through the Letchworth Culture Project

  • Improve our online Heritage Advice Service to make it easier for
    homeowners to apply to make improvements to their properties

Increase investment in Letchworth

  • Launch our new fundraising strategy to support the future of our arts, culture and heritage venues and community programmes

  • Take a leadership role to advocate for investment in Letchworth to address the needs in our town

  • Work with Cranfield University to research and map Letchworth’s economic future including local areas of bioscience and digital

  • Work with our partners to explore whether Letchworth can become a ‘smart town’

  • Respond to the outcome of the Local Plan